It has long been known to construct towing hitches that are mounted to vehicles in order to allow the towing of trailers or the like. In recent years such hitches have been designed to include a receiver box having a rearwardly directed opening or cavity for the receipt of a hitch or draw bar that carries a hitch ball or other means allowing connection to a trailer. Examples of such a structure include the Insta-Hitch II and Custom Hitch Receiver 35365 as manufactured by Reese Products, Inc. of Elkhart. Indiana. Such a hitch receiver is also disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,768,837 to Reese, owned by Reese Products, Inc.
Recent efforts to enhance the versatility of a hitch receiver have led to development of various accessories (e.g., both open and closed article carriers, bike racks, ski racks, tables, winches or other equipment) mounted by means of an accessory mounting bar in the receiver box of a trailer hitch receiver assembly. Because of their convenience and suitability to the particular applications/interests of the user, such accessories have become very popular.
In order to allow for or accommodate trailer towing and accessory mounting simultaneously, a receiver assembly with both a trailer hitch receiver and towing accessory ports has been recently developed and is the subject of, for example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 60/194,502, filed Apr. 3, 2000 and 60/243,486 filed Oct. 26, 2000. This new trailer hitch receiver assembly includes a central frame member, a mounting bracket carried on each end of the central frame member for securing the central frame member to the vehicle, a hitch receiver box carried on the central frame member and at least one accessory receiver having a port for receiving and holding a recreational and/or utilitarian accessory.
The present invention relates to a load bed/rack extender particularly adapted for mounting in a receiver box and/or one or more accessory receivers of a trailer hitch receiver assembly. The load bed/rack extender allows the user to conveniently haul an article or articles having a length exceeding that of the load bed. With the load bed/rack extender in place, the portion of the article(s) exceeding the length of the load bed/rack is effectively and efficiently supported for added stability and protection against inadvertent damage.